En Passant
by Icicle Streams
Summary: Momoshiro and Kaidoh have a discussion about tennis, friendship and life over a game of chess. Takes place after the Third Years leave Seigaku.


If he moved to the left, his opponent would be forced to counter... and then if he advanced forward, would it entice his opponent to attack as he hoped?

"Whatcha doing, Kaido?"

The older boy looked up from the black and white chequered board and hissed softly. Momoshiro laughed and took a seat opposite. He plucked a pawn from the board and eyed it with great interest.

"Don't touch that!"

"My mistake," Momo apologised, replacing the piece back to the board before leaning further back into the chair. Kaido ignored the other boy's grin and returned his attention to his board.

"By the way," Momo added casually, "If you move that knight to G5, then he has to take with his rook to prevent check. Then you should cross over to here with your bishop, threatening his queen. If she doesn't take you, then it's checkmate with your knight. If she does, you take with your rook back in that other corner, and it's checkmate. Wait... it _is_ mate in 3 moves, white's turn, right?"

Kaido stared at the board, silently following the suggested paths in his head. It couldn't be... Opening up the old paperback his senpai had given him, he checked the solution in the back. He turned slowly to look up at his classmate in disbelief.

"I didn't realise you played western chess, Momoshiro."

He laughed in response before resting his elbows on the table and playfully spinning a bishop on its head.

"Well, shogi's just not for me, the pieces aren't as cool," he laughed, before continuing on more seriously. "I'm really not that good. I used to play back in my younger years, before I got into tennis. I wasn't that brilliant at coming up with fancy plans on my own, but I could judge and react pretty well to whatever my opponent did, so I won pretty often. Sometimes though, I'd not take it so seriously and have a crap opening game, and then it would be too late for me to hope for anything better than a stalemate."

He sighed at his whimsical reminiscence of youth. He remembered how his father first taught him, showing him how each piece moved in a different way and that together they are crucial to win. It made him laugh, the memory of how he couldn't understand why the queen was so much more powerful than the king, prompting his younger sister to hit him on the head indignantly. Such fond memories...

"I see. I didn't expect for you to be so good."

"It's simple maths and logic, bro. Just 'cause I'm not an egghead doesn't mean I can't play. Speaking of, I didn't realise that _you _played, Kaido."

He shrugged and began to set up the board, carefully placing each piece onto its respective starting square.

"I don't really. Inui taught me though, before he left. He said I'd done plenty to train my body-"

"-I don't doubt that-"

"-but that I should train my head a bit. I dunno... I still suspect it was just an excuse for him to destroy me and make me drink his juices."

They both shuddered at the thought.

"I see that you've set up the board again," remarked Momoshiro, nodding at the neatly prepared board before them.

The other boy nodded silently in response, tightening his bandanna.

"...so I'm guessing you want to play then?"

Kaido sighed and smiled.

"I only started learning a few weeks ago, so you do realise that I'm probably going to lose, right?"

"Pfft, probably, unlikely, whatever. It's not like this is Inui's data tennis."

"Fine. You can play white then."

The first few turns passed quickly, each of them mechanically performing the rehearsed opening moves.

"Hey Kaido," began Momoshiro during black's turn.

"Hmm?"

"Have you noticed that girl in the back corner of our Maths class?"

Kaido raised an eyebrow as he pictured the gang of giggling girls by the windows. Did Momo want to be anymore vague?

"There are a lot of girls sitting there, you know."

"You know, the one who's a dancer. I think her name's... Rika, that's it! You know, she has kinda rounded cheeks and has that ballerina walk? Long, silky hair? She joined the girl's tennis team recently?" he added at his perplexed face.

"You mean the girl who went to Australia for a few years or something?"

"Yeah, that's the one!" exclaimed Momoshiro triumphantly.

Kaido sighed shortly before advancing his knight.

"What about her?"

The other boy grinned slyly and winked.

"She's been checking you out a lot lately. Always staring and giggling whenever you enter the room. Ever since you became captain or something."

"Fshuu..." hissed Kaido. He did not appreciate Momo's meddling in his private affairs, especially when the other boy's were such a wreck.

"She's not that bad looking, you know. Kinda cute, the way she laughs and stuff."

"Momo..."

"And she's got a nice figure. I mean, not so big up _there_, but she's a healthy girl and stuff. Dancers legs, you know?"

"Momo!" cut in Kaido in an exasperated voice.

"What?" he smirked.

"It's check," he replied with a sly smile of his own.

Momoshiro promptly removed his king from the danger.

"You know, I swear she only joined the tennis team, just in case us heads of the guy's team ever decided to help out the girls..."

"Well, then why don't _you_ go coach her then? You seem to know all about her."

"Not really. It's just like, with Inui gone, _somebody_ has to carry on his stalking legacy. Besides, it's not often that a girl shows interest in _you_, eh Kaido?"

Ignoring this quip, Kaido's black knight advanced forward, attacking both the rook and queen in a fork attack. He'd lose his knight in the process eventually, but it was worth the gamble. He was hoping to take each of Momo's pieces, one by one, until he was too weak to put up a big fight. Endurance... that was his game...

"Mm, yeah, I could never coach her..." muttered Momo, moving his queen from danger. He really should have seen that coming.

"Or else Tachibana An would get jealous, right?" added Kaido slyly.

Momo coloured deeply, making Kaido laugh. So confident in teasing others about these things, but when it came to himself...

The younger boy cleared his throat and suddenly smiled cheerfully.

"Exactly. Therefore, _you_ should go coach her."

Kaido soon realised that this would never end. Momoshiro could talk non-stop... he swore that the only way to shut him up was to put a tennis racket in his hands. Looking down at the board, he realised that he was about to lose either his rook or bishop. How cunning...

"Come on, what's the harm in giving the girl a hand? You might even like her..."

"Momo, as captain, I will seriously remove you from the starters if you don't shut up. Now."

He laughed defiantly, but had the good sense to let sleeping snakes lie. He enjoyed a good joke, but knew when to stop when it was actually annoying.

"It figures that you would like using your knight so much, Kaido. The curved, L-shape movement, right?"

"I could say the same for you and your aggressive use of your queen. Besides, I'm just as good with a rook."

"Don," said Momo decisively, taking the rook for himself. "And yeah, I've noticed. You'd been practising your straight shots before the Rikkai game, right?"

"I had to work on my weaknesses before such an important game," he replied, almost talking to himself. "I had to hold my own against the rest of you guys; I couldn't let you all down."

"That's why you're the captain."

Looking down at the board, it was a pretty even game. They had both taken heavy losses; it was a race to see who could get their pawns to the end first.

"Actually, I'm glad you became captain," added Momoshiro seriously. "Not just because I'd be hopeless at ordering people to run laps. But I mean, even if I was qualified for it, you deserve it more than me. If they had asked me first... I actually would have turned it down and passed it on to you."

Kaido didn't know what to say. That his long-time rival would... He bowed his head in silence and instead advanced his pawn another step. Another step forward, closer and closer to the goal...

Momo frowned slightly as he looked down over the board. So many little pieces... pawns taking steps forward, never turning behind, always striving for victory until they could become something so much greater. He eyed the pawn Kaido had placed so alluringly in danger of his own piece. It was a poorly masked ploy for him to move his pawn out of that file, leaving a clear path for the black pawn that was being blocked.

"Do you... do you reckon all the others... that they're proud of us, Kaido?"

Kaido didn't answer. Instead, he stared in mild surprise at the board as Momo removed the black pawn to the graveyard of taken pieces. Surely he hadn't fallen for that trap...

"I'm sure Oishi would be, in having left the vice-captaincy to you," he replied finally, not looking up.

"Hopefully," he answered carelessly, although deep down, the comment touched him.

Momoshiro moved his pawns forward aimlessly. The game had lost interest for him. Black was one square away from the end.

"Looks like you've got yourself a queen. 'I predict a 99% chance of your victory,'" he imitated their older friend with a laugh.

His classmate couldn't help smiling at the likeness. The black queen and king began ruthlessly chasing the white king through the forest of immobile pawns, trapped against their identical opponents. It was a constant stream of checks and moves. Black victory was assured.

But Kaido's mind was far from the simple board before them. He thought of all the things his teammates had taught him, from the perfection of Tezuka to the irritatingly lovable freshman. All the pain they had gone through together, the hardships and the sacrifices...

Suddenly Kaido's queen cut across the board close to the black king, but not in a position to endanger it. Momo stared at the bold movement in surprise. What was he doing! Trapped between an illegal move towards the king and the line of danger posed by the queen, it was...

"Damn. Stalemate. It was still a 1% chance of failure in the end, wasn't it?" said Kaido quietly.

"Nah, take back the move!" urged Momoshiro, his understanding of the situation obvious in his voice.

"No. It was stalemate."

They stared at the board in silence, neither of them making a move towards it. Finally, Kaido broke the silence.

"Come on," he said, sweeping the pieces into the bag. "Let's see if the other guys are free this Friday for a hit. We haven't played with them for a while."

Momo ran his finger over the grooves of the black king, feeling each groove and bump of its crown under his fingertips. His companion cleared his throat and widened the mouth of the velvet pouch. Smiling, he replaced the plastic piece to the bag and closed the board with a snap.

"Yes, Captain."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hey, you know how I said 'Evidence' was my first PoT fic? Well, I lied... sorta. That was the first fic I published, this was the first one I actually wrote, get it? :P As par usual, constructive crit. is welcome<br>**_


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